21 Members Of Guard, Army Die In Crash

Airplane Smashes Into Georgia Field

UNADILLA, Ga. — A plane carrying members of a National Guard engineering crew en route from Florida to Virginia crashed in heavy rain Saturday, killing all 21 people on board, officials said.

Three Army and 18 Air National Guard members were killed when the C-23 Sherpa crashed in a field in central Georgia near Unadilla, about 30 miles south of Macon, said John Birdsong, a spokesman for Robins Air Force Base, which had been tracking the flight.

Birdsong confirmed there were no survivors.

"The wreckage is pretty bad," said Dooly County Sheriff Van Peavy.

Local fire and rescue workers extinguished a fire that broke out after the crash.

All 18 passengers were members of a Virginia-based military construction and engineering crew on a training mission, a Virginia Air National Guard spokeswoman said.

The plane's pilot and two other crew members were based in Florida, officials said.

The light military transport plane, which can carry up to 30 passengers, was en route from Hurlburt Field near Ft. Walton Beach, Fla., to Oceana Naval Air Station, Va. It crashed about 11 a.m. EST.

John Allen Bryant Sr., 57, heard the plane crash in a field on his farm, about 2 miles from his house and a few hundred feet from a grove of trees. He rushed to the site.

"It was just a horrible, horrible scene," Bryant said. "The plane was just about completely gone. There was very little of its stuff left. It just about all had burned up. It was just awful."

Dennis Posey, a farmer who lives about a half-mile from the field, said he jumped into his pickup and went to the crash site when he heard a loud thud. The plane exploded only moments after it landed, Posey said.

He said there was no way anyone could have survived: "I knew nobody could come out of that."

Posey said his father, D.E. Posey, among the first people to arrive at the site, saw several pieces fall off the plane as it descended.

"There was a wing off it and a part of the tail section," he said.

Mike Bryant, who also lives nearby, said he was in his yard when he heard the plane pass overhead.

"I could tell the plane was in trouble," said Bryant, who is not related to John Bryant Sr. "I turned around and I saw it just fall to the ground. It exploded. It wasn't on fire until it hit the ground. Then it exploded and burst into flames."

Officials have not determined the cause of the crash.

Heavy rain and wind swept the area Friday night and Saturday from a huge storm system moving across the South.